A Downy Day

We studied feathers today and even went on a feather hunt!  We walked through a nearby forest and down to a pond, but unfortunately no feathers were found.  My daughter found a turkey feather last year that I used to show the children the parts of the feather.  We pointed out the Quill, Down, Rachis, and Vane.  I made some related papers for the children to take home and want to share them with you.  I'm not sure how to embed a document into blogger, so here's the best I could do. 

The children were able to take home this "Parts of a Feather" page:
Parts of a Feather

and older children were able to label the feather on their own:
Parts of a Feather Worksheet

We also watched Part One of the "Dinosaur Feather Mystery".  The children were amazed by the fact that today's birds may be direct descendants from dinosaurs:


Do you believe at the end of the day, one of the moms came to pick up her son... and what did she find?  A feather by the edge of the sidewalk.  Go figure!

We didn't get a chance to read it today, but this is a great book about birds for children of all ages.